Mark Horowitz M.A. is a leadership and organizational development consultant, an experienced educator, board certified coach and the author of The Dance of We: The Mindful Use of Love and Power in Human Systems. He trained in Humanistic Psychology with Abraham Maslow, Ph.D. and in Psychosynthesis with Roberto Assagioli, M.D. He has studied the field of human systems for over thirty-five years as a licensed individual and family therapist and as a management consultant and coach for businesses in the United States, Europe, Scandinavia, and Russia. He has facilitated numerous leadership training programs and large-scale corporate change projects, and has served as coach to senior business leaders undertaking team and organizational development initiatives.

He is a faculty member of the International School of Psychotherapy and Group Counseling in St. Petersburg, Russia, and has been an adjunct faculty member at John F. Kennedy University and Antioch San Francisco in California, and at Suffolk and Lesley Universities in Boston. He is an amateur woodworker and a founding board member of The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine. He is also the founder and president of The Uniterra Foundation, an international non-profit committed to the practical application of spiritual values to social change. He lives outside of Boston with his wife, Abby Seixas.

Also…

A neurotoxin called acrolein found in tobacco smoke that is thought to increase pain in people with spinal cord injury has now been shown to accumulate in mice exposed to the equivalent of 12 cigarettes daily over a short time period.

Acrolein is produced within the body after nerve cells are damaged. In spinal cord injury and in multiple sclerosis, the myelin insulation surrounding nerve cells is destroyed and the nerve fibers themselves are damaged by acrolein. The toxin acrolein also is found in air pollutants including tobacco smoke and auto exhaust.

“It is already known that smoking can increase pain for people with spinal cord injury and worsen the condition of multiple sclerosis, but we don’t know exactly why,” Shi said. “I am saying that acrolein might be the key culprit here and that inhaled acrolein could intensify multiple sclerosis and increase pain sensation.”

Disruptions in memory-related brain activity could inform new treatment strategies for smokers. Quitting smoking sets off a series of changes in the brain that Penn Medicine researchers say may better identify smokers who will start smoking again—a prediction that goes above and beyond today’s clinical or behavioral tools for assessing relapse risk.

Reporting in a new study published this week in the journalNeuropsychopharmacology, James Loughead, PhD, associate professor of Psychiatry, and Caryn Lerman, PhD, a professor of Psychiatry and director of Penn’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Nicotine Addiction, found that smokers who relapsed within seven days from their target quit date had specific disruptions in the brain’s working memory system during abstinence that separated them from the group who successfully quit. Such neural activity—mainly a decrease in the part of the brain that supports self-control and a boost in the area that promotes an “introspective” state—could help distinguish successful quitters from those who fail at an earlier stage and serve as a potentially therapeutic target for novel treatments.

Researchers used PET/CT to study the brains and pituitary glands of veterans with MTBI and PTSD.

Many veterans diagnosed with PTSD may have hypopituitarism due to MTBI.

Thomas M. Malone, B.A.

Hybrid imaging with positron emission tomography and computed tomography (PET/CT) in the pituitary region of the brain is a promising tool for differentiating military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from those with mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI), according to a new study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

The findings also lend support to the theory that many veterans diagnosed with PTSD may actually have hormonal irregularities due to pituitary gland damage from blast injury.

The results suggest that PET/CT may provide an effective way to diagnose and differentiate PTSD from MTBI and offer more insight into the biological manifestations of the disorder.

“This study sheds light on the complex issue of PTSD, which also has symptom overlap with depression and anxiety,” Malone said. “Currently, treatment for PTSD is typically limited to psychological therapy, antidepressants and anxiety medications. Our findings reinforce the theory that there is something physically and biologically different in veterans who have MTBI and PTSD compared to those who just have MTBI.”

Teens who have suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) are two to four times more likely to use drugs or alcohol, compared with teens with no history of TBI, according to new research published in The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation.

“Overall, a teen with a history of TBI is at least twice as likely as a classmate who hasn’t suffered a brain injury to drink alcohol, use cannabis or abuse other drugs,” said Dr. Michael Cusimano, co-principal investigator of the study and a neurosurgeon at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada.

Teens who have suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) are two to four times more likely to use drugs or alcohol, compared with teens with no history of TBI, according to new research published in The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation.

“Overall, a teen with a history of TBI is at least twice as likely as a classmate who hasn’t suffered a brain injury to drink alcohol, use cannabis or abuse other drugs,” said Dr. Michael Cusimano, co-principal investigator of the study and a neurosurgeon at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada.

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